


The End of the Beginning

by thinlizzy2



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-20 04:47:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17016021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thinlizzy2/pseuds/thinlizzy2
Summary: An ancient demon, an innovative creator and an unlikely hero - Michael's past, present and future all seen through his own eyes.





	The End of the Beginning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [herowndeliverance (atheilen)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/atheilen/gifts).



Michael wasn’t born, at least not in the way that humans are born. He simply came to be. First, he wasn’t. And then he was. 

It happened at roughly the looping part of the first Y in Jeremy Bearimy, on what would have been roughly 6:11pm on a Thursday if days of the week or the concept of hours and minutes had been invented at that point. The universe flexed and rippled as it sometimes liked to do, there was a loud snapping sound and then Michael existed. A couple of fire monsters looked over and shrugged; one waggled its fingers in a distracted form of greeting and then when back to fussing with the gut extraction machine. And almost everything else went on largely undisturbed. 

Almost everything. 

Michael opened his eyes and looked around, taking in both the concept of existence and the Bad Place for the first time. There was a wall of flame to the left, where a few disembowelers were taking an antimatter break. The river of tormented souls was looking a bit low; he must have come into being during a soul drought. There was an intriguing looking box of torture implements being unpacked. Michael looked with interest at the auto-flayers and wondered if that would turn out to be his thing. 

Then he looked down. The source of the loud snap was revealed. 

The day that Michael began his existence was significant in more ways than one. By sheer coincidence it was also the day that a particularly enterprising mollusk, after endless generations of false starts and mishaps, had finally developed actual, useful, _walkable_ limbs. Not buds, not useless flaps - these were the real deal, the first step in what would have been the evolution of actual intelligent life its particular corner of the universe. 

Except Michael had stepped on it. Shattering its shell, squishing it to pulp and ruining any chance it ever had of passing on its genetic code to future generations who would use their advantages to evolve still further. Realizing what had happened, Michael looked down at the obliterated shreds of what would have eventually become a thoughtful and sensitive species in a world that, although still reasonably young, was already crying out for intelligence and sensitivity. 

He smiled.

***

Michael looked around at the fruits of his labors and rubbed his hands together with glee. It had taken a ridiculous amount of work and there had been more than one setback along the way, but his neighborhood was finally ready for the arrival of the first four humans. He took it all in – the endless frozen yogurt shops, the twee little cobbled squares, the grass that was somehow slightly too green and the sky that oddly managed to be a little bit too blue. His demons were in place with their roles established and their characters all ready to go. He had a Janet – an actual Good Place Janet – in place, unaware and entirely ready to do his bidding. And his human suckers were waiting in stasis, with absolutely no idea of the thousands of years of torment that were lying in wait for them.

He made a few quick calls before officially setting things into motion. He checked with Shawn of course, just to give a final progress report before the big opening. He tried his best to ignore the skeptical tones in his boss’s voice. After all, he couldn’t really expect Shawn to see the beauty of his vision until it had truly been brought to fruition. Once he had succeeded, then Shawn and everyone else would finally understand. 

He wondered for a moment what it would be like to have an actual friend – someone who he could call for support and who would genuinely want him to succeed. He shook the thought out of his head. It was a stupid thing to think about and an even stupider thing to want. So what if he’d never have real friends, in the ways that humans did? He’d never face a lifetime of unending torture either. 

It was worth it. Totally. 

Next he got in touch with Trevor to ensure that his first big surprise twist was ready to go and ran a few last-minute character notes with Vicky. Then, unable to hold off for a moment longer, Michael lifted one hand and snapped his fingers. In that instant, the sun in the sky began to give off the perfect amount of heat. The plants of trees began producing oxygen, the fish began to swim in the lake, the frozen yogurt machines started to churn and stir. And Eleanor Shellstrop, safely stowed away in an almost aggressively non-threatening waiting room, opened her eyes. 

And Michael smiled.

***

The Good Place didn’t officially have jails or holding cells or anything like that, but no one there seemed to know what else to call the room where they were keeping Michael. Many of the Good Place workers had, unnervingly, settled on “Michael’s no-no place”, and he would have loved to have the energy or time to spend on making them cut that shirt the heck out.

Unfortunately, that was a luxury he didn’t have at the moment. 

Instead, all of his efforts had to go into to trying to find out where the fork they had taken his Janet and the four humans. He hadn’t seen any of them since the first moment that his irritatingly polite captors had slammed – okay, gently closed – the door and locked him up here, and after so many centuries of having them at the center of his existence, not knowing what was happening to them was driving him out of his mother-forking mind. 

Eleanor had been right. Not being able to swear when he wanted to really _was_ forking awful

He sat on the absurdly and frankly annoyingly comfortable sofa and dropped his head into his hands. He hoped so much that the Good Place was able to help the four humans. He told himself that they were, after all, the only beings that really mattered. If they were okay then he really didn’t care what happened to him. Or to anyone else.

The problem was, he couldn’t make himself believe it. Not anymore. 

He’d gone head to head with so many beings that he had once really believed would have been able to help. The judge, the accountants. And all of them had let him down. So why would the staff of the Good Place be any different? And even if they were, was it really enough to save just his four humans? Now that he had met other humans, he really didn’t think it was. Could he really let the Bad Place have Simone? Eleanor’s little stepsister? Doug Forcett? All the rest? Of course not. But if the judge and the accountants and the people in the Good Place didn’t care, then who could he possibly get to help them all? 

He heard Janet’s voice in his head. Her sweet, well-meaning, impossible words. 

“It’s you, Michael. It has to be you.” 

Michael rubbed at his eyes and sighed. He was trying so hard to make himself believe that a plan would just snap itself into existence, the way it had when he had first conceived of the idea for his more sophisticated and perfect torture system. If it had happened once, then of course it could happen again. Right? 

Just in case, he waited for an extra-long moment. 

Nothing. Of course not. 

Michael nodded, accepting it all. He smiled and prepared to begin.


End file.
